The Final Rule

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Ellis stood in the middle of nowhere surrounded by knee-high grass as wide as his fingers and so green it looked painted. In front of him, six massive pecan trees swayed in the wind. Soft moans eased from their knotted limbs. The sound was so rhythmic it almost formed words.

A flash of color peeked from a gap in the blades of grass. Ellis picked up a blue knit cap. An R was written on the tag near the bottom.

“Rudy?”

He waded through the grass toward the trees.

The wind slapped Ellis’s shirt against his skin and the knit cap was snatched away. He tried to grab it, but his fingers closed around empty air.

Rudy’s cap disappeared between glistening branches and into the churning sky.

Ellis started to turn but noticed jagged grooves carved into the bark of the tree next to him. The lines formed the letter B. The next one an I, the next one a G. There were more.

He put them all together. Big and Terrible.

One tree after the other he found the words written in the same primitive writing that was often on the drawings that papered the walls in Rudy’s bedroom.

An oily substance bled from the furrows in the wood. Ellis ran his thumb along the scars and the liquid slid upward and out of reach. Before he could get close to another groove, the black ooze slithered from its cradle and raced into the tree limbs.

The ground under the trees belched up rocks. Then the soil cracked underneath the weave of grass as the earth swelled with an abscess.

He took a step closer and a static-like feedback slammed against his mind, obliterating his thought.

The lump of earth shot towards him.

“Ellis, wake up.”

Images of gnarled black trees were washed away by strips of dawn breaking through the windows. Familiar objects surrounded Ellis, yet he felt like he shouldn’t recognize them. They belonged to a life that was no longer his. One he’d lost days ago.

A life where he had a brother he loved. Now that brother was gone.

“Ellis?” Jon leaned over him. Worry formed crows feet around his eyes and drew his eyebrows into a V.

He brushed a lock of hair back from Ellis’s eyes. “You okay?”

Was he?

A silly mistake of pulling a girl’s hair had brought down the wrath of one insane man. Ellis had tried to keep his brother safe.

The details of the last few days trickled in. Ellis flexed his hands, the scratches on his palms burned with a healing itch.

Like the bruises, the scratches were the badges he’d brought home from his battle with the monster.

“Would you like me to make you some breakfast?”

“No.” And he wasn’t sure why.

“You’ve hardly eaten anything in the past few days.”

Had it been that long since he’d stood in the rain, gun in his hand, waiting…waiting…

“I should have killed him.” Where the words once made his eyes burn with tears, now they only hurt his heart.

Jon shushed him.

What if Lenny came after Jon next? No, there was no what if. He would. He would come after both of them. They would both suffer and there was a very good chance Lenny would take the broken pieces of Ellis’s life and crush it into dust. He’d failed his brother and now he’d failed Jon.

“Somebody has to stop him, Jon.” And it seemed like no one could. Even when they stood a few yards away with a .38 in their hands.

“No. Not like that.”

“He’s not going to stop.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t want his blood on your hands. He doesn’t deserve the privilege.”

“But no one else stop him. I was right there. I should have.” Should have. Ellis believed it with all his heart, but the part of him that could kill Lenny was unreachable. Why? Why had he hesitated? Why was it that, even filled with enough anger and grief to kill a man, he’d been unable to pull the trigger?

Was he that much of a coward? Was he so weak he didn’t have what it took to protect the people he loved?

The idea stirred hate. But it was for himself.

“I really should have.”

Jon pressed his lips to Ellis’s temple. “I know it seems that way.”

Seems? “How can you say that?”

Jon exhaled a sigh. “Because I’m not so sure killing him will stop this.”

Ellis pushed up on his elbow. “I know he’s a monster but I’m pretty sure if he was six feet under he’d have a hard time hurting anyone ever again.”

“Because I’m beginning to wonder whether or not he’s really the Monster.”

“Excuse me?” Ellis sat up. “He killed Rudy.”

“That’s not…” Jon rolled away. “That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

He sat up and scrubbed his face.

“Jon?”

His shoulders rose and fell. “George said something the other day.”

“What?”

“He said evil is like a disease.” Jon looked at him. “What if he’s right? What if evil is like a disease and it can spread?”

“What are you trying to say?” Because it sounded like Jon was making excuses for the bastard. And if he was? Ellis dug his fingers into the sheets. God help him.

“It’s crazy.” Jon shook his head. “No, it’s insane. And granted, it might be my fucked up head, but something isn’t right.” Jon moved to the edge of the bed and rubbed his bad knee. “The other day in the grocery store I ran into Lenny.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because…”

“You think I can’t handle it. You think I’m too delicate. Too weak. Too—”

“No.” Jon leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. “I can’t handle it.” A tremor ran down his back.

“Jon?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. I just…” He dropped his head.

“Tell me what happened.”

“I’m not sure how.”

“Try.”

Jon stared at the wall for what seemed like forever. “He said something to me. No, more than just something. He knew things about people, Ellis. He knew the dark and terrible things they’d done or thought about doing. They were things he couldn’t know. Shouldn’t be able to know.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There was this girl, she had a bruise on her cheek. Lenny said her father raped her, and would again, and again. And this older couple. The wife was poisoning her husband.” He laughed but it wasn’t a happy sound. “I told you it was crazy.”

“He killed Rudy. I’m sure lying isn’t that difficult for him to do.” Ellis started to stand but he shook so hard that he didn’t trust himself to stay on his feet.

The bed shifted and the heat of Jon’s body pressed against Ellis’s back. “Normally, I would agree with you. But this time he told the truth.”

“Why? Because he said so?” Ellis turned. Whatever it was he wanted to say evaporated under the pain-filled darkness in Jon’s gaze. Whatever Lenny said to Jon didn’t just scare him, it had left behind open wounds.

“How could he know?”

“I don’t have a clue. But he talked like…well, like something was responsible for making people do things.”

“Nothing makes people do anything, Jon.”

“And people can’t see the future, win every game of Go Fish that they play, or find anything they look for, except the cookies.”

“Don’t you dare…” Ellis swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Don’t you dare mock my brother.” The force it took for him to speak left him trembling.

“I’m not.” Jon shook his head. “I swear I’m not.”

A tear slipped down Ellis’s cheek and Jon thumbed it away.

“There are no such things as monsters,” Ellis said. “Not beyond a sick, evil, bastard who deserves to be locked up for the rest of his life.”

“But what if there is?”

Ellis shoved himself off the bed.

Jon stood. “And what if this monster, this
Big and Terrible
monster, makes people sick?” He brushed a hand over Ellis’s shoulder. It might as well have been glass shards raking down raw nerves.

He jerked away. “Stop it.”

“Think about it, Ellis.” Jon jabbed a finger against his temple. “All the people who have gone bad. Those deputies. That judge who lied for Lenny. Even George said the crime in Gilford has gone up. You said yourself that…”

“Just stop it!”

“Hear me out.”

“No.”

“Ellis…” Jon reached for him and Ellis knocked his hand away.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me. Don’t…” He shoved his way past Jon and went to the dresser. How could he insinuate that…that…son of a bitch was anything but fully responsible?